Conservative groups warn House GOP to 'fulfill this mandate'

One day after House Republicans began backing away from their pledge
to cut $100 billion from the federal budget, a group of stalwart
conservatives circulated a “communiqué” on Capitol Hill and K Street
warning Republicans to stay true to their principles and campaign
promises.

The group of 47 longtime activists on the right, who dubbed themselves
the “Conservative Action Project,” issued an eight-point plan for the
112th Congress in an attempt to hold Republicans' feet to the fire on a
host of conservative principles from lowering taxes and cutting
spending to overturning federal funding of abortions overseas.

ADVERTISEMENT

Members of the project include the attorney general under former President
Reagan, Edwin Meese III; the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins;
Let Freedom Ring’s Colin Hanna; The Eagle Forum’s Phyllis Schlafly; Americans for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist; Citizens United’s David
Bossie; Concerned Women for America’s Penny Young Nance; The
Leadership Institute’s Morton Blackwell; The Center for Security
Policy’s Frank Gaffney and Focus on the Family’s Tim Goeglein.

The group also strongly warned Republicans only to work with Democrats
when they “agree to conservative goals.”

"As new leaders your mission is to fulfill this mandate,” they wrote,
referring to their eight-point plan, which specifically includes a
plank on reducing government spending to pre-Obama levels. “Work with
the President and his allies when they agree to conservative goals.
But do not compromise on fundamental principles of freedom and limited
constitutional government."

The activists said they were standing with nearly 100 conservative
leaders and Tea Party activists to reaffirm the principles of
constitutional limited government, economic freedom and “our belief
in a strong national security and traditional family values.”

Republican aides have said the GOP will still look to
significantly reduce spending, but the notion of cutting $100 billion
from the federal budget was based on the premise that President
Obama’s full-year 2011 budget would be enacted. They said they would
fulfill their pledge to return non-security discretionary spending to
2008 levels, but argued their $100 billion pledge did not apply to the
budget being developed for the second half of fiscal 2011, which ends
Sept. 30.

Democrats never passed a budget resolution last year, and the last
continuing resolution they passed lasts only until March 4.

The conservative communiqué calls on Republicans in both chambers to
repeal the new healthcare law or withhold funding, block key
provisions and override regulations implementing the law until the
Congress is able to force Obama to sign a law formally repealing it.

“Only after Obamacare is rejected, can Congress undertake a careful,
thoughtful legislative process to make practical adjustments that
allow the free market to provide affordable, effective health care
insurance choices,” the groups wrote.

The groups said Republicans’ second priority should be stimulating
economic growth and job creation by rejecting any effort to increase
taxes, ending the estate tax and making permanent the tax cuts of 2001
and 2003. Cutting spending would only help bolster the economy, they
argued, specifically citing the need to eliminate taxpayer dollars for
private organizations that engage in political advocacy, an apparent
reference to the liberal community activist group ACORN.

Government bailouts of private companies, Wall Street financiers and
state governments, they argued, is inherently unfair to working
Americans by burdening them with higher taxes and creating future
debts based on bailouts for bad actors.

When it comes to national security, the groups argued for peace
through strength, not “vulnerability, not appeasement and not an
apologetic America” and specifically called on Republicans to support
“comprehensive” missile defense.

“The new Congress should support our troops at home and abroad,
strengthen the alliance of free and democratic nations, and oppose any
surrender of American sovereignty to the United Nations and other
transnational organizations,” they wrote.

Perhaps the most controversial plank is a demand for a restoration of
“traditional American values” and an “immediate” ban on taxpayer
funding of abortion providers.

“Conservatives recognize that government policies which weaken the
family take a special toll on the poor,” they said. “The results of
families falling apart has huge moral and financial costs for all of
us since society will pay through wasteful and fraud ridden programs
supporting the welfare state. Congress should immediately ban
tax-payer funding of abortion providers, promote policies that uphold
the sanctity of human life, and oppose policies & programs that are
destructive towards traditional marriage and families.”

The groups also spoke out against what they labeled “Obama’s
court-packing Scheme,” an attempt they said to fill benches with
judicial activists who have “personal agenda[s].”